People on board

LOUGHLIN, Patrick

Patrick Loughlin was born in Seaview House, Clarence Street, Kingstown, on 27 January 1883, and baptised in St Michael’s Church. He was the second of six (possibly seven) children of Patrick Loughlin, a Sailor, and Mary Connor. According to later censuses Mary was born in Co Wexford, but Patrick’s birthplace is unknown, as is the place and date of their marriage. Over the following years the family moved between Albert Place, off York Road, to Seaview House on Clarence Street to Cumberland Street, all poor housing close to the harbour. The boys were born at regular intervals, Henry 1881, Patrick 1883, Myles 1885, William 1887, Michael 1889 and Laurence 1891.

In August 1891 Patrick Snr. had an accident while working on RMS Munster. He was painting the side of the vessel and fell into the sea. His body was recovered and he was buried in Deansgrange Cemetery. In the 1901 census his widow, Mary’s, age was given as forty, and she was living in Connors Court, at the rere of Mulgrave Street with all her children except Patrick.

He had joined the British Navy in January 1901 and was working as an Assistant Steward in Devonport. In 1905 he transferred to the Royal Fleet Reserve, and in 1908 he was working with the CDSPCo on the mailboats out of Kingstown.

In March 1908 Patrick married Kate Cunningham in St Joseph’s Church in Glasthule. They lived in Mulgrave Street where Patrick was born in May 1908, followed by Henry 1910 and Hubert 1911. An unnamed child was born in 1913 and the following January a daughter, Catherine, lived for just two hours after birth. Thomas was born in December 1914 and there may have been others, as yet unidentified. In 1914 Patrick was called up to the Naval Reserve and served for two years, after which he returned to Kingstown and the mailboats. The family then lived at 117 George’s Street.

Patrick was working as a Seaman on RMS Leinster on 10 October 1918 and his brother Michael was ‘Officers’ Steward’ that day. At the Inquest after the sinking Patrick said that it was part of his duty to see that the passengers were equipped with lifebelts, and that he had six hundred lifebelts on the deck, which were in addition to those below deck.  Both brothers survived the sinking of the ship and after the war both received the British Mercantile Marine Medal, as did their brothers Henry and Laurence. Patrick was at sea again until 1919 and he died in 1933 in the Lourdes Hospital, Kill-o-the-Grange at the age of fifty.